Muscadine Pie

By MaryEllen

I found this after I bought some Muscadine grapes and I was looking for information on how to eat them. They are absolutely delicious grapes and readily available here in the South. They make a wonderfully sweet wine (my favorite kind!) and Farmer's Market sells Muscadine Grape Slushies which are out of this world!

Ingredients

• pastry for 2-crust 9-inch pie (I use Trader Joe’s)
• 2 quarts ripe Muscadines
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon)
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar (another identical recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups sugar! Taste and see what you think)
• 1 tablespoon butter, cut in small pieces
• 1 tablespoon arrowroot powder to thicken or corn starch will work

Details

Adapted from artofyou.com

Preparation

Step 1

1. Line pie plate with half of the rolled out pastry. Refrigerate pie shell and remaining pastry until ready to fill pie, otherwise you’ll have a mushy mess that falls apart. You can make your own pie crust if you want, I’m not going there. Hey I smashed the grapes, you gotta give yourself a break somewhere!
2. Mash muscadines or smash the pulp with seed out. You just need to separate the hulls (Skin) from pulp and set aside. Watch the video for details. Strain through a sieve to get juice; discard what’s left of the pulp and seed in the sieve. Cook the reserved hulls in juice until tender, adding a little water if needed.
3. Let cool, then add lemon juice, flour, arrowroot and sugar. Put fruit mixture in prepared bottom crust. Carefully arrange top crust over fruit, lattice style, if desired. Flute edge. Cut several slits in top if top crust is left whole. Bake in a 400° oven for approximately 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 375° and bake 30 minutes longer.
4. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Delicious!